Addis Ababa, March 21 (ENA): The increased inflation rate that reached 64 percent in July 2008 has witnessed a sharp decline since last month owing to various fiscal and administrative measures taken by the government, Central Statistical Agency (CSA) said on Saturday.

Department head with the agency, Kasu Gebeyehu told ENA that the country level overall inflation rate which stood below 18 percent by November 2007 was sharply increasing to reache at 64.2 percent just in 9 months time.

Cognizant of the fact, the head said, the government has taken several fiscal and administrative measures to stabilize the market and to halt the pace of the inflation.

As the result, he siad the galloping inflation rate was checked at 64.2 percent before it started to decline since September 2008.

According to the head the declined inflation rate sharply dropped into 32.8 percent last month, witnessing a 50 percent decrease.

Particularity the food inflation rate that reached at almost 92 percent in July 2008 sharply plummeted to 39 percent by February 2009, observing a 60 percent decline, he said.

Price and indexes expert with the agency, Alemayehu Teferi said the decrease in the over all country level inflation rate was due to several fiscal and administrative measures taken by the government.

With this regard, the government has imported dozens of metric tons of wheat to stabilize food prices, the expert recalled.

He further said new agricultural products such as maize that have just entered to the market have also contributed a lot to the declining inflation rate at the country level.

Despite a slow increase in some non-food items globaly the price of oil is steadily declining, he recalled.

He said the price of some basic public services such as transport has been lowered due to the decline in price of oil globally, he indicated.

According to the expert preliminary assessments have been indicating that the decline in the inflation rate will continue in the future.